Bye-bye corner office: It’s one team, one space

Common workspaces help foster collaborative and innovative spaces among employees who, according to a study, spend nearly 37% of their day at work.Varuni Khosla&Saumya Bhattacharya | ET Bureau | July 04, 2017, 09:50 IST

These vanishing cabins are also accompanied by collaborative workspaces to foster a creative, entrepreneurial mindset, promoting a startup culture.The future of work is about bringing down the walls — not just in terms of hierarchy, but office space, too.

Taking a cue from startups, companies are bidding adieu to the fabled corner office. These vanishing cabins are also accompanied by collaborative workspaces to foster a creative, entrepreneurial mindset, promoting a startup culture.

Companies like Microsoft, Ikea, Coca-Cola, Tesco and Vistara are trying out new techniques to engage their employees in common workspaces in India. While this has been an ongoing trend, more traditional companies are implementing it now.

Common workspaces help foster collaborative and innovative spaces among employees who, according to a study by furniture manufacturer Steelcase, spend nearly 37% of their day at work.

At Ikea’s offices in Hyderabad and Bengaluru, the focus at the time of designing the offices was on the company’s most important asset: employees. Its mantra to keep employees happy is providing them a work environment that nurtures creativity, fun energies, conversations, team work, and a place where co-workers can share knowledge, think and reflect.

“Our workplaces create an environment for dynamic meetings and inspiring workplaces, and all our offices reflect this spirit and energy,” said Anna-Carin Månsson, country HR manager for the Swedish brand. At Microsoft, which has redone its Gurgaon and Mumbai offices, commercial marketing director Himani Agrawal says the open office space removes barriers and makes everyone approachable. “I especially love the Mad Hatter’s space whenever I need to ideate,” she said.

Here, the chairman of the company sits on the same kind of desk as anyone else. You can walk up and talk to the top honchoes. Seats are not fixed — they can be changed regularly. The endeavour is to remove any traces of hierarchy. “This gives employees greater flexibility in picking the space thatthey want to operate out of, on any particular day,” said Ira Gupta, the company’s HR director.

At beverage major Coca-Cola’s office, there are fewer than a dozen cabins occupying just about 7% of the total office space. Most of these cabins have transparent glass doors, indicating that the top management is always accessible to people. Like Ikea, here too, workspaces balance both ‘alone time’ and ‘group time’.

The open floor plan and shared work spaces encourage employees to engage in spontaneous conversations leading to extraordinary ideas. “We believe that providing options to choose the space depending on the type of work at hand boosts innovation, creativity and efficiency,” said its vice president, HR and services, Manu N Wadhwa. Vistara’s CEO sits along with colleagues on the open plan and open culture office without cubicles and cabins.

UK retail brand Tesco started refurbishing its office in India in October 2015, aiming to make the space to be more inclusive as well as become more agile. Since the leadership at Tesco in Bengaluru sits alongside their teams, it increases access and transparency within a modern work environment. The current framework enhances the ‘one-team’ culture and hot-desking provides flexibility to employees to work from any place, enabling them to better engage with each other, said Krity Sharma, head, people.

Some say organisations have to figure out how they can create different places or a palette of places where each worker can find privacy, rejuvenate, recharge and connect with colleagues around the world.

“Companies have policies to have freedom and choice in the physical environment where they will find an appropriate place to work,” James P Keane, chief executive at Steelcase, told ET.